


Nothing Lasts Forever

by QueenPersephoneofHades



Category: Avatar: Legend of Korra
Genre: Angst, Drama, F/M, Non-Canonical Violence, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-17
Updated: 2016-04-14
Packaged: 2018-06-02 01:37:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 7
Words: 4,553
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6545191
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/QueenPersephoneofHades/pseuds/QueenPersephoneofHades
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>No matter how much we might want it to, nothing remains the same for long. All we can do is hold on as hard as we can and hope for the best. 2014 Tumblr Waava Week.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Immortal

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Finally realized I never posted this here; it was on my FFN for ages, so I thought I'd add it over here as well!

She never knew just how short a human being's lifespan is until now.

During their mad dash across the world finding Lion Turtle cities and learning the four elements, not to mention training for Harmonic Convergence, she and Wan had either been to distant or too busy to speak of their lives before they'd met. Not that there was much to tell in either case; he'd been a pickpocketing street thief since the age of six, and she'd spent the last three Harmonic Convergences and the ten thousand years in between battling against her other half to ensure the safety of the world.

Now, fused into one body and soul, Raava can only watch as his life slowly begins to drain away before her eyes.

She hadn't noticed at first; now she knows she really should have.

The first decade after their fusion is perfectly normal, if it can be called that; he's just as vibrantly happy and naively optimistic as she has always known him to be.

He takes his new task of protecting the world in Raava's stead with a vigor most mortals would think unhealthy, willingly leaping directly in between opposing armies to force them away from each other and try to talk sense into one general or another.

She often scolds him for this reckless behavior – _what if he got hurt?_ – but he tends to ignore her advice in favor of saving as many lives as he can, no matter how much she might yell at him later. It infuriates her to no end, but he eventually seems to listen and acts a tad more cautiously.

They continue to travel across continents on Mula, saving people and stopping many wars with seemingly no effort at all.

They'd stop in towns for supplies on occasion – _very_ rarely, but it did happen once in a while – and she got to see what 'normal' humans were like. Men, women, and children all living together in makeshift little homes, so different from the wandering spirits she is used to and especially different from Wan, who can't seem to stay still for more than a few hours before desiring to explore the world a bit more.

She can't help but notice most of the men seemingly Wan's age have a wife and family by this point in their lives, but Wan never brought it up and she would be lying if she said she was brave enough to ask – which is simply the strangest thing; she'd never been afraid to ask him anything before.

Their journey continues for another decade, but, slowly but surely, things begin to change.

It's unnoticeable enough at first; Mula starts getting a bit slower, starts sleeping in a little longer than normal. Every morning, when he gets up for the day's journey, his legs tremble the slightest bit when he climbs to his paws.

Wan passes it off as fatigue and decides to camp earlier in the evening; Raava does not have the heart to tell him otherwise until sometime later.

Another decade passes, and the world seems determined to remain at odds despite Vaatu's imprisonment and all of Wan's good work stopping battles – if only temporarily.

Wan still doesn't seem bothered by the fact that he has no family to call his own.

Mula is now much more noticeably slower, often moving no faster than a trot unless urged faster for one reason or another. His whiskers have lightened to the point of being nearly invisible.

Luckily, Wan seems to understand what's happening to his friend without Raava needing to mention it, though he never acknowledges it.

Things begin to change much more quickly the morning after a long battle they'd just managed to stop a short time before dawn. Raava can still spy the moon slowly drifting toward the horizon when it happens; Wan's fingers slip as he's tying a bandage onto his leg.

The abrupt and inconvenient moment is overshadowed by the sharp pain that twinges into existence in his wrist that rapidly moves up to his knuckle and finger joints.

They both feel it simultaneously, man hissing and spirit wincing in surprise.

Wan released the tension in his hand, staring at it in disbelief.

The pain floats around his joints for a while, not getting worse or better for several minutes, before finally fading away to the point of near nonexistence; still there, but bearable.

The duo remains silent for a moment or two, neither knowing what exactly to say, until Raava asks incredulously, "What was that?"

Wan blinks, seemingly dazed for a second, before smiling good-naturedly like he usually did when he didn't understand something and yet liked to pretend he did. "Nothing; probably from that boulder I punched earlier. It really hurt, remember?" he explained calmly, tone upbeat as he reached down to pick up his dropped roll of cloth.

Raava would have given him a blank stare if she could; instead, she simply sent several _unimpressed_ vibes his way. "Wan, you punched the boulder with your left hand, not your right," she deadpanned, tone clearly stating that she would not be buying any of his cheery bullshit today.

"Did I? That's funny; I could've sworn it was my right," he muttered, puzzled as he finished tying the bandage in place.

"Is there something wrong with your memory, too?" she tried to snark at him casually, but there was an undercurrent of concern she couldn't quite keep out of her voice.

"No!" he squawked indignantly.

"It must be a result of you constantly smashing rocks with your head," she mused thoughtfully.

"I don't even do that!" he denied immediately, face flushing red.

She would have smirked if she could. "Oh really? Need I remind you of the battle of Yi Valley? I recall having a headache for _days_ afterward-"

"Yeah, yeah, I get it, I want head-butt rocks anymore, okay?" he muttered, pouting like a five year old.

' _Honestly,_ ' she thought, a warm fuzzy feeling fluttering briefly though her soul, ' _Why do I even put up with you?_ '

Of course, she did not make him aware of this rather embarrassing thought; instead, she simply sighed, "Whatever, just stop ratting your brains around; you don't have enough to lose."

He looked deeply offended by that; she had to stifle the urge to giggle like a young girl. Really, sharing the body of a human gave her far too many human traits.

But despite the distraction, she wouldn't forget this; his joints still felt painful once in a while.

Five more years down the line, and she notices that a few of his dark hair have started to lighten just the slightest bit at the crown of his head.

She remains silent on the matter for a while, unwilling to admit what they mean, keeping up their repertoire of banter throughout most of the day, until Mula decides they've traveled far enough and falls asleep under a tree, leaving Wan to go and refill their water-skins at a nearby stream, and she finally decides enough is enough.

"Wan?" she calls, a part of her wishing to stall for time before the inevitable conversation starts.

He hums absently in response.

She would be rolling her eyes if she could, and, before she can lose her nerve, she blurts, "Why is your hair turning gray?!"

She knows the answer. She doesn't want to admit it, though.

He pauses in his task at her loud outburst, causing a small amount of water to plop back into the stream – he water-bends the water into the pouches now; his knees hurt too much for him to crouch comfortably now, and she _knew_ that, but…

He stands silently for a while, inspecting his reflection critically, turning his head at every angle; she realizes he hadn't even noticed the color change until now.

"… Well," he says slowly, "I suppose that means I'm getting old."

It was one thing to know about it; to hear it aloud just completely throws her off track.

"Old? You haven't even seen a full century!" she protests, unwilling to allow herself to accept this false statement; the Wan she knew would always be the reckless, slightly dimwitted boy who insisted on helping her with an impossible task. 'Old' simply was not in her vocabulary.

But it was hard to deny when he himself simply deadpans, "Raava, I'm fifty-five. For humans, that's pretty old; most of us don't even live to see a century."

Any protest she has dies in her metaphorical throat when she looks at him; really _looks_ without lying to herself. Aside from the graying hair, his face bears lines she isn't used to seeing. His bones, while still sturdy, are significantly weaker than they were when they first fused.

"Raava," he began quietly, and she did _not_ like that tone in his voice, "Humans don't live for very long; even animals don't last that long. Spirits are the only beings known for hanging around for a while, you know?"

Oh, she knew; she just didn't want to think about it.

Yes, Raava had lived for a very, _very_ long time.

Yes, she knew humans and animals and any other mortal beings didn't usually last very long.

But she'd never once before thought about getting involved with a human.

But she'd never thought a human would become precious to her.

And she certainly never thought she'd end up regretting her immortality because of a human.

But Wan had never played fair. He did the impossible on a daily basis just by existing.

And she couldn't help both loving him and hating him for it.


	2. Strength

She's seen him at the breaking point before – the battle with Vaatu still haunts their nightmares to this day – she just wished she'd never see him there again.

But under the circumstances, she can't really blame him for it.

Digging the grave for their beloved companion took hours, not only because he insisted on doing it the old-fashioned way, but because he kept having to pause to give his aching bones a brief moment of rest.

Wan didn't stop crying in all that time, which wasn't surprising; Mula was his oldest friend, longer than even Raava. He'd had a special bond with the cat-deer, something that is rarely seen between human and animal.

She remains silent for the most part, allowing him to wallow for a while, though she intervenes quickly if he keeps going when his muscles are too strained. There are no words said, nothing to be expressed; they already know each other well enough to understand everything that needed to be.

The hill they'd chosen is lovely; a single cherry blossom tree standing over a long sweep of grassy valley, just the place Mula would have loved in life or death.

Lowering the stiff body is a challenge because of creaking, stubborn joints, but Wan is persistent. He manages to put his old friend in place without any harm.

They stand there, staring down at the wrapped corpse that had been their loyal friend and companion throughout so many adventures. Wan's tears have dried; Raava is silently reciting an old prayer she'd heard some millennia ago about peaceful rest.

Then, he sets to work on burying the cat-deer.

She's seen him at the breaking point. She's seen him on the ground, sprawled out where her greatest enemy had nearly destroyed him.

She's seen him at his best. She'd been with him to defeat Vaatu and save the world as was their duty.

But she'd been wrong before. Saving the world wasn't strength, it was _loyalty;_ to her, to his spirit friends, to those humans he hadn't been able to save from Vaatu's influence all those years ago.

Because now she's seen his true strength.

Walking away from that hilltop was the strongest thing she'd ever seen him do.


	3. Heartfelt

It's been a while since their last truly heartfelt conversation. She just wishes they were discussing a different topic.

"What's going to happen to you when I die?"

Wan wasn't one for being blunt, but it's only been a week since Mula's funeral and he's been unnaturally pessimistic since they'd moved on from the valley.

Raava mulls the question over, trying not to allow her apprehension to leak through into his thoughts. "… I don't know," she eventually admits, coiling nervously around the core of his soul, hoping to get a read on his reaction.

She'd been hoping to avoid this conversation for as long as possible, but it seemed losing one friend had been quite enough for him.

"You don't know," he repeats slowly, sitting back against the tree he'd decided to rest under. Travel was far more taxing on foot, especially when the body was full of weary bones and creaking joints, but they'd made good progress today.

His tone of voice isn't angry or exasperated as it would have been in his youth, thinking she was dodging the question – they've been bonded long enough for him to know when she's stalling – he sounds more anguished than anything.

"We are the first fusion of human in spirit in the history of the world," she murmured, reciting the words she knew so well after repeating them for decades, "I told you before, there's no way to know what could happen. You're not immortal, I am; humans reincarnate, spirits are purified, recreated, and reappear in the Spirit World with little memory of what happened before we 'died'. For once, I am just as in the dark as you are on the subject."

He doesn't respond right away. She stares morosely through his eyes at the patchwork of stars above their head, glittering in the darkness of a new moon night.

Her vision is suddenly impeded by a wavering effect she unfortunately recognizes; his eyes are filling with tears. "I don't want to lose you," he rasps, unable or unwilling to force the tears away. They run down his wrinkled cheeks; she wishes, not for the first time, that she had hands that could wipe them away gently.

"I do not wish to lose you, either," she says, her voice uncharacteristically emotional.

In a perfect world, the two of them would be together, one eternally young, the other in a real, human body, and they would spend the rest of eternity with each other.

But in this world, they can do nothing but be there to talk to and comfort the other as their time together slowly runs out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The angst in their relationship is overwhelming.


	4. Breathing

Breathing is a rather novel experience for her.

Before, she'd been a normal spirit – well, one of the two most powerful spirits known to the world, but you get the idea – and like any other spirit, hadn't needed oxygen to survive.

She had known, somewhere in the back of her mind, that normal creatures – humans, animals, and insects – needed to breathe, but she'd never really acknowledged it until she and Wan became one.

The quiet puff of air in between inhales; the feeling of his muscles expanding and contracting to intake air; the pump of his heart sending fresh blood to every vein within his body. At first, she'd considered the sensations unnatural and slightly unnerving to the point of shying away from it as much as was possible when they literally shared a body; now, she can't help but revel in it.

Breathing means Wan is alive, and that he will continue to be so for the time being.

And if she has to rip armies apart to keep him that way, then so be it.

No matter how old he might get, how grey his hair is and wrinkled his face becomes, he is still the precious boy she'd teamed up with to save the world from one terrible mistake, and she wasn't letting that naïve young man go without a hell of a fight.

Because she knows their time together is limited. And she's not letting a single second slip away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Raava is the most badass character on Legend of Korra aside from Kuvira. And that's saying something.


	5. Touch

If there is one thing she regrets about fusing with Wan, it would be not being able to touch him anymore.

Not that they had done much of that sort of thing back before Harmonic Convergence – most of their physical contact at that point mostly consisted of mixing their energies together or carrying the other when they were exhausted – but near the end, before they'd run into those humans that Wan had known before meeting her, she had slowly begun to relish those small moments of touch more thanshe ever thought she would.

Now, they share a head, among other things, and unfortunately, sharing the same head also constitutes into sharing memories as well. She's kept most of her more awe-inspiring, unbelievable memories to herself, but his is open like a book, ready for her perusal at any time.

She doesn't look at them often – they are his private thoughts, and whether or not they share a body now they are his business alone unless he brings it up – but she'd had a glimpse of several of his more _surprising_ fantasies from his younger days.

Since humans died so quickly and had children to carry on their legacy, she'd known they achieved reproduction _somehow,_ she just wasn't aware of the _how;_ until of course sixteen-year-old Wan's memories decided to inform her, about a decade after their fusion.

She'd been so mortified she hadn't spoken to him for a week, and he had just continued chattering to the thin air, oblivious to her discomfort as he petted Mula in between the horns.

Eventually, she eased into communication with him again, but uttered not a single word about what she'd accidentally caught sight of, some feeling niggling at the back of her mind – she'd been sure it was just residual embarrassment.

But it wasn't.

She felt it again, a few weeks later, when they'd stopped at an inn to spend the night at for once, and a woman of the night – the technical, far more polite term for _prostitute_ – had sashayed right up to Wan, the smell of sake on her breath and eyes dancing with mischief as she grinned up at the tall man she'd spotted.

Wan had done his best to politely extricate himself from her embrace, but her hands had roamed _everywhere_ – nowhere appropriate for public, certainly – and with a yelp, he'd been able to escape and flee outside to Mula, who had carried them away into the night like the faithful friend he always was, completely forgetting about the room they had rented.

Raava has seethed furiously for days, often breaking off into outraged rants on his behalf, while he did his best to help her calm down before she risked sending them into the Avatar State for no reason.

Wan put the incident behind him easily enough, but it stuck with Raava far longer, making her shift restlessly within her vessel ( _prison_ ) and wishing more than ever that she could do something.

It wasn't until many years later that she finally realized what that feeling was:

Jealousy.

She had been jealous of that woman with no name, because she could touch Wan; and not just in the dark, inappropriate way.

Raava couldn't do any of the ridiculous petting that girl had performed. She couldn't hold his hand, or pat his head, or hug him, or wipe away his tears or press her lips to his-

She couldn't do any of that. Even if she still had her own body, it would've been unnatural and incredibly awkward, what with her large, fan-like form.

She couldn't touch him.

But she wished she could.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> God, these two are ridden with much angst.


	6. Broken

Today is different.

She can feel it in their bones.

It has been a long time; nearly thirty five years since their last discussion about death and mortality. Wan's hair has turned completely gray, and his body is now a shadow of its former glory, his skill and ability to bend all four elements the only things keeping him alive on the battlefields lately.

She wishes he would just _stop;_ stop fighting the unending battles, stop halting inevitable wars, stop resisting his own body's aching protests and take a long, well-deserved rest, because his promise has been kept – he's done his best, but there's no way the world can be changed in only one lifetime – except he wouldn't listen anyway.

That promise of his is the only thing keeping him going, most days.

Like today.

They had long ago abandoned the careless practice of simply wearing whatever clothing they happened to be carrying; his body couldn't take hard hits like it used to, so they now wears lightweight armor that provides some protection yet still allows him to fight at full flexibility.

The fighting has already begun by the time they arrive; she can't recall who it is that's gotten hostile to each other this time, but judging by the giant earthen disks flying through the air and fireballs shooting across the ground, she supposes it is safe to assume the Earth Armies have gotten mixed up with the new Fire Nation. (They'd briefly met the new Firelord; he was a decent enough man, aside from being a bit power-hungry.) She could only hope this was a misunderstanding that could be fixed quickly.

No dice.

Wan leaps forward, creating a tidal wave of earth for him to ride on into the outskirts of the battle to search for the general's battalion (he's finally taking her advice; he no longer heads into the middle like all those years ago).

Of course, the fighters notice a giant wall of rock heading towards them.

Wan is still incredibly agile for an elder from what Raava can tell, but even he couldn't handle an onslaught of both Earth and Firebenders alike turning on him attacking.

Dodging proves futile when a swath of flame comes from your left while a gigantic earth disk is sent whizzing past your right.

Wan punches through the rock as it were old clay and lands a kick into one soldiers face, smoothly taking him and his partner out with deadly precision (he is no longer the naïve boy he once was, and she regrets every second of it because it is her fault, no matter what anyone said).

They move onward, taking out one attacker after another, weaving through the arrows and fire and earth as flawlessly as an Airbender while attacking with all of the ferocity of a Firebender.

It feels like only seconds (hours) later when it happens.

Some little punk (a rank amateur, really) decides that the old man currently slaughtering his comrades is not worthy of fair combat and pops out of the soil just behind them, startling Wan and making Raava hiss in fury ( _she should have known he was there,_ _ **damn it**_ ) and manages a single strike.

One strike is enough.

The boulder smashes into Wan's ribs with an echoing _crack!_ that surely the whole world could hear, because it was the only thing Raava could hear; that, and Wan's shriek of pain.

( _He's too old for this, he shouldn't be here,_ _ **he should have gotten out while he still could-**_ )

The old bones splinter like toothpicks, the organs inside punctured by the fragments and smashing into each other unceremoniously, setting the entire area into a fire of agony and pain and _oh spirits it_ _ **hurts-**_

They black out.

Or at least, he does.

She takes a single moment to survey the damage done to his body – _too old, too young, he's_ _ **hers**_ _and he's_ _ **broken**_ _and that_ _ **is not okay**_ – before rounding on this little coward with fiery white light in their shared eyes and a snarl in their voice.

" _ **Shall I break you as well?**_ "

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, I'm dying on the inside.


	7. The Only Way

It's over much too soon for Raava's taste.

She would have preferred the little bastard to suffer a bit (make that _a lot_ ) more before he died, but the first blade of air she sends at him is enough to bisect him directly through the waist. He hadn't even had enough time to dodge.

The wrath of all four elements under the control of an enraged spirit is more than enough to wipe out half of the armies on both sides, and send the rest of them packing faster than she thought possible.

She might've continued the onslaught – might have completely decimated the entire landscape, let alone the armies of man – if the body she inhabited hadn't decided to make it's injuries known.

She – _they_ – shriek in agony, the fury that had propelled her into the wind abruptly vanishing as terrible lances of fire seem to sink into their lower abdomen.

They drop rapidly, but she still has enough sense to at least slow their descent with the wind she had conjured up. They still hit the ground, though far more gently than they would have if she'd blacked out, but the impact is still enough to wrench another cry from their throat.

She's gasping, forcing his lungs to keep working, even as she feels it to be a losing battle – even if their ribs weren't half-missing, most of their digestive system is little more than slush at the moment, only kept in place by the skin surrounding it.

Somehow, the pain manages to bring him around, his body shaking with spasms as it resists going in to shock.

He groans, trying to lever himself up off of his stomach to take pressure off the badly damaged area. He manages to get to his knees, but the torment of moving that much is too much; he falls back, collapsing and sliding down on one of the gigantic earth disks that had been flying around earlier.

Blood trails sluggishly from his mouth, and he grits his teeth, eyesight already dark around the edges.

Raava shifts within him lethargically. She's never felt this much pain in her life; not even her diminishing strength from Vaatu's attacks had been this bad.

"I'm sorry, Raava," he manages to rasp, gaining her attention. His eyes trail listlessly across the battlefield, littered with corpses and arrows, fire and giant rock disks. His eyes closed briefly in pain. "I failed to bring peace. Even with Vaatu locked away, darkness still surrounds humanity."

His eyes trail upward to the stars obscured by smoke. "There wasn't enough time," he sighed, exhausted.

With a terrible jolt, she realizes what this is; it's not an apology. It's a good-bye.

Her mind immediately wails against the very idea, but there's nothing she can do; the pain is fading, going numb as his body shuts down slowly.

She wants to cry; to scream; to destroy that bastard a thousand times over because _this isn't fair, this shouldn't be happening,_ _ **what can she do-?!**_

The answer comes to her when his soul flickers – it's barely clinging to life as it is – and she can feel her own essence fading with it too.

It was so simple; so obvious. She should have seen this years ago.

"Don't worry," she says, somehow sounding much calmer and far more encouraging than she felt, "We will be together for _all_ of your lifetimes. _And we will_ _**never**_ _give up._ "

Because humans didn't last forever. Spirits did. They had merged together, bonded forever.

Their souls were literally _one._

And the only way she intended to continue this fight was _**together.**_

With him. No matter how many lifetimes it took.

**~FIN~**


End file.
